water will have chilled her and we need her warm. You’ll find the sheets I brought-they look like a cross between plastic and tin foil. And I have sheets of clingwrap. I want them, too.’
The firefighter nodded, grateful to do anything. Anything! He disappeared at a run.
‘We need to contact air ambulance services,’ Hugo said in a voice that was growing more ragged by the minute.
‘I already have.’ It was the fire chief, appearing over the dam bank with his radio receiver still in his hand. ‘One of the state’s medical evacuation helicopters is available. Apparently our firestorm has upgraded us. Cowral’s become a priority and the chopper will be here in twenty minutes.’
‘If we can keep her alive,’ Hugo muttered, and Rachel shook her head.
‘There’s no doubt.’ She had an oxygen mask on the girl’s face and already Sue-Ellen’s complexion was deepening under the grime to something that looked more healthy. As if on cue, the girl stirred and moaned.
‘Morphine,’ Rachel murmured, reaching behind her for her bag, but it was Hugo who administered it. He was shocked and battered but he was working on autopilot.
‘Let me go. Let me go…’ It was a thready whisper but she was starting to fight them.
‘Haloperidol?’ Rachel queried, and Hugo nodded. If Sue-Ellen was schizophrenic then the whole combination of events might well be enough to push her over the edge. Sedation was imperative.
The fluids were flowing freely now. Rachel took another blood-pressure reading and breathed a bit more easily.
‘A hundred and ten, seventy. See, Hugo? We’ll do it.’
‘You’ll do it,’ he muttered. ‘I couldn’t do it without you. Hell, Rachel, I had nothing.’
‘Because your car went up in flames,’ she said brusquely. ‘It could be said you had an excuse. I don’t think the medical board is going to strike you off for losing your doctor’s bag. And you did save the patient.’
Gary arrived back, sliding down the bank with a bunch of blankets. He looked worried sick.
‘Let’s find the extent of these burns,’ Hugo said. He was starting to sound in control a bit-just a little. He lifted Sue-Ellen’s palms and grimaced. Rule of palm… Take the area of a size of a palm print and measure how many palm prints were burned on the girl’s body. Twenty? Thirty? They were looking at something like thirty per cent burns.
‘We need that fluid coming in fast.’
‘We have it,’ Rachel replied.
‘Have we got dressing packs?’
‘We have everything we need.’ She’d carried her bag with her, and she flipped it open. As Hugo started gently separating burned fingers-imperative in these first few minutes-she started sorting, handing Hugo sachets of specially formulated gel to soak the burns, then gauze to place over them before they wrapped the whole area in clingwrap. It was imperative to get the area sterile and air-free.
At what cost came the time spent in the dam? What infections were in the ash-and mud-laden water? But at least it meant she had a chance.
And a chance was what she most needed. As Gary stooped over Sue-Ellen and her eyes fluttered open and found Gary…as Gary lifted her hand to his face and held…just held, Rachel thought Sue-Ellen had everything she needed right here. Right now.
She was injured almost to death.
But she had her love and one look at Gary told her that it would take more than schizophrenia or bushfires to part them again.
And all of a sudden Rachel was blinking back tears. Of…envy?
‘She was in the house.’
Hugo was sitting in the mud on the dam bank, his head in his hands. Behind them the whirr of the helicopter was fading into the distance.
They’d lifted Sue-Ellen from the dam bank, warmed her shocked body, covered her burns with antiseptic gel and the thin plastic burn wrap and continued her on intravenous fluids. They’d given her as much morphine as they could. Then they’d loaded her into the medical evacuation helicopter where a team of skilled medicos were waiting to take her to Sydney.
Gary had gone, too. It hadn’t been discussed.
She had every chance of survival, Rachel thought as she watched the chopper disappear into the distance. Although the burns to her legs and hands were too extensive to be treated in a small country hospital, they shouldn’t be extensive enough to be life-threatening. Not with the prompt treatment she’d had and the fact that in an hour she’d be in the best burns unit in the state.
And the schizophrenia? With love and devotion she had a good chance of a stable life. Gary wasn’t about to be pushed aside again, for however noble a motive, Rachel thought.
And here… Already the goats were emerging from the water, starting to forage over burned ground. Amazingly, they even looked as if they were finding things to eat.
The goats might be back to business as usual but Hugo wasn’t. He was sitting on the dam bank, looking sick. Rachel sat down beside him, hauled Pudge, Sue-Ellen’s pup, up onto her knee and held the shaking dog. With her free hand she took Hugo’s and held that, too. Tight.
‘Hugo…’
He looked dreadful. While they’d worked over Sue-Ellen he’d been efficient, doctor in medical mode, but as the chopper left the fight seem to have drained out of him.
‘Hugo,’ she whispered again, and he stirred, as if trying to rouse himself from a dreadful dream.
‘The house had started to burn before I reached her,’ he said at last, wearily, as if hardly conscious that Rachel was beside him. ‘She must have gone back in. I yelled out and I could hear her inside the house, screaming for Pudge. Screaming. But Pudge was outside. The pup came to greet me as I pulled up, desperate. As if he knew his mistress was inside.’
‘So you went in.’
‘Of course.’ He winced and Rachel looked down at the hand she was holding. There were blisters there. Burns. He’d been wearing protective clothing and that was intact, but there were spot burns on his hands and on his face.
He’d been through hell.
She pulled back on her hand, afraid she was hurting him, but his grip tightened.
‘But you found her,’ she said softly, and he nodded.
‘I found her in the back bedroom and the curtains were burning. The window had exploded inward. And she had bare feet. Bare feet!’
‘Hugo-’
‘I should have come last night. I should have thought of Sue-Ellen then.’ He groaned. ‘Hell, I should have-’
‘You’re one man,’ she said gently.
‘I went to the beach.’
‘There was no danger last night. And other people checked. Gary loved her and he checked. She sent him away. There was nothing else you could do. You know that.’
‘But today-’
‘Today you came. You came in time. They’re saying on the beach that Sue-Ellen refused to evacuate. Do you think she would have evacuated if you’d ordered her to? You’re not omnipotent, Hugo. You’re human. You’re a doctor and a really fine one at that, but you’re still human.’ She took his palms into her hands and looked down. He was burned but not too badly. Still… Her face twisted. Dear God, he’d come so close. ‘You’re a lovely, lovely man,’ she whispered. ‘The best… Oh, God, Hugo if I’d lost you…’
He wasn’t hearing. He was still with Sue-Ellen.
‘I thought she was stable,’ he said bleakly. ‘Sensible. Last time I saw her… I was out here three days ago when the fires first threatened. She talked about evacuation plans. So why didn’t I check?’
‘Because you can’t be everything to everyone,’ she said softly. Then, because she couldn’t bear to watch the pain in his eyes any more, she took his face in her hands and kissed him-softly, on each eyelid in turn. ‘Sue-Ellen made her own decision not to leave her animals. That’s her responsibility. Back at the beach… Sam called her a schizo-a mental case-and if that’s the way you regarded her then, yes, you were responsible for her because she
